August 2017

We had a wonderful weekend reconnecting with folks from the church we called “home” for seven years in St. Louis, Old Orchard Pres. It was great to get to see so many friends and worship with them for the first time in more than four and a half years!
We also received pledges from a couple of new financial supporters, putting us just $2,300 from the “half-way” mark!

“Park Street defies the myth that Boston and the rest of New England have shed their religious heritage for a secular society. It also defies the institutional hold that the Catholic church has on America’s most Catholic city. In fact, evangelical Christianity is thriving in Boston. During the past 30 years, church growth, fueled by evangelical university groups and immigrant communities, has dramatically outpaced population growth. At the same time, mainline denominations have dwindled and the abuse scandal in the Catholic church has forced the closing of dozens of parishes. Evangelical leaders expect this “quiet revival” not only to continue, but to blossom into another Great Awakening.” (see more here)
Pray for the same thing to happen a little ways to the south in Greater New Haven!
Yale was once the bastion of Christian teaching in New England after Harvard’s Unitarianism led it away from the faith. Pray for Yale and Connecticut colleges to experience the same revivals that Massachusetts colleges are experiencing!

A quick praise: the only casualty of the motorcycle odyssey last Tuesday was that when I tried to turn my computer on when I got home nothing happened. I did research online, reset a bunch of things, pointed a fan at it for two days… nothing. Today I took it to the store, explained what was happening to the guy and he said, “let’s take a look at it” and pressed the power button… and it came on! Praise God!

Today is my last Sunday preaching at our church in Carbondale; please pray for the service and the reception to follow that it would be a good time of worshiping together and celebrating what God has done during our time here.

Watching Ellie’s and Hudson’s swim teacher work is fascinating. The first two levels are mostly just about getting comfortable in the water. Level three is actually about technique, but every action is broken down so far that kids who are scared don’t even realize they’re doing something they’d have been scarred by. Diving, for example, doesn’t start with standing I the diving board, but with sitting on the edge of the pool and launching with arms and head in the right position from there; then again while kneeling; eventually, a few days later, with standing; one day, from the diving board.
Evangelism in a post-Christian culture is similar. You don’t start with a propositional argument, or memorized presentation, but with small steps. Letting people get used to saying “hi,” then asking their names, then learning about them, then doing things with them, then having them over… in short, the slow steps of building a relationship; incarnating the gospel–as Christ did–in the lives of those who need it by our presence–which is, by our union with Christ, His incarnation into the lives of those He is using us to minister to.

I had the opportunity to meet with the MNA Committee of Missouri Presbytery today! But I got caught in an unexpected downpour while making my way home on the motorcycle. I holed up in a Denny’s for a while, now I’ve wrapped a plastic bag around me under my motorcycle jacket (brought the one that’s not waterproof unfortunately) and am heading home in the dark and the wet – pray for me! The headlight on the motorcycle isn’t that great, so I have to go really slowly at night to avoid overriding it.